AT&T company stores have LOTS of displays

I visited an AT&T store in Danbury, CT recently. The store was loaded with many displays.  

Here are a few pictures:

Accessories (blu-tooth headsets, etc.) in an acrylic case atop a locking cabinet; Three-sided take-one for cases; A large iPhone kiosk with video display and live product samples (video showing 3GS model) and a cloth banner sign for the 4GS model; U-Verse floor stand with brochure take-one's on top; and a peg-board floor stand spinner for more accessories.

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Digital Frame at Citibank

A Pandigital photo frame on the counter at local Citibank branch in Connecticut.  Not sure what the purpose of it is.... just had a few photos with no text.  Could have been selling a service or perhaps a premium offer for the frame itself. At any rate, I am seeing more digital frames being used at retail. 

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Red Bull can display

Spotted this ultra simple, small but eye-catching display for Red Bull carbonated beverage in a bar. Displays two actual size cans of the beverage, design is simple wire with a stamped sheet metal base with indented section for setting the bottom can in place. The top can is held in place by the bent wire. Powder coated in silver. Small metal ball feet welded to bottom. An excellent and low cost way to display this product.

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Phenomenal Wonders Of The Natural World

Environmental Oddities Sailing Stones  The mysterious moving stones of the packed-mud desert of Death Valley have been a center of scientific controversy for decades.  Rocks weighing up to hundreds of pounds  have been known to move up to hundreds of yards at a time.  Some scientists have proposed  that a combination of strong winds and surface ice account for these movements.  However, this theory does not explain evidence of  different rocks starting side by side  and moving at different rates and in disparate directions.  Moreover, the physics calculations do not fully support this theory  as wind speeds of hundreds of miles per hour would be needed to move some of the stones. Columnar Basalt When a thick lava flow cools, it contracts vertically  but cracks perpendicular to its directional flow with remarkable geometric regularity - in most cases forming a regular grid of remarkable hexagonal extrusions  that almost appear to be made by man.  One of the most famous such examples is  the Giant's Causeway on the coast of Ireland (shown above), though the largest and most widely recognized  would be Devil's Tower in Wyoming .  Basalt also forms different but equally fascinating ways  when eruptions are exposed to air or water. Blue Holes Blue holes are giant and sudden drops in underwater elevation  that get their name from the dark and foreboding blue tone they exhibit  when viewed from above in relationship to surrounding waters.  They can be hundreds of feet deep  and while divers are able to explore some of them  they are largely devoid of oxygen that would support sea life  due to poor water circulation - leaving them eerily empty.  Some blue holes, however, contain  ancient fossil remains that have been discovered, preserved in their depths. Red Tides Red tides are also known as algal blooms  - sudden influxes of massive amounts of colored single-cell algae  that can convert entire areas of an ocean or beach into a blood red color.  While some of these can be relatively harmless,  others can be harbingers of deadly toxins  that cause the deaths of fish, birds and marine mammals.  In some cases, even humans have been harmed by red tides  though no human exposure are known to have been fatal.  While they can be fatal,  the constituent phytoplankton in ride tides are not harmful in small numbers. Ice Circles While many see these apparently perfect ice circles  as worthy of conspiracy theorizing,  scientists generally accept that they are formed  by eddies in the water that spin a sizable piece of ice in a circular motion.  As a result of this rotation,  other pieces of ice and flotsam wear relatively evenly at the edges of the ice until it slowly forms into an essentially ideal circle.  Ice circles have been seen with diameters of over 500 feet  and can also at times be found  in clusters and groups of different sizes as shown above. Mammatus Clouds True to their ominous appearance,  mammatus clouds are often harbingers  of a coming storm or other extreme weather system.  Typically composed primarily of ice,  they can extend for hundreds of miles in each direction  and individual formations can remain visibly static  for ten to fifteen minutes at a time. While they may appear foreboding  they are merely the messengers - appearing around, before or even after severe weather. Fire Rainbows A circumhorizontal fire rainbow arc occurs at  a rare confluence of right time and right place for the sun and certain clouds.  Crystals within the clouds refract light  into the various visible waves of the spectrum  but only if they are arrayed correctly relative to the ground below.  Due to the rarity  with which all of these events happen in conjunction with one another,  there are relatively few remarkable photos of this phenomena. Sinkholes Sinkholes are one of the world's scariest natural phenomena.  Over time, water erodes the soil under the planet's surface  until in some cases, quite suddenly, the land above gives way and collapses into the earth.  Many sinkholes occur naturally  while others are the result of human intervention.  Displacing groundwater can open cavities  while broken pipes can erode otherwise stable subterranean sediments.  Urban sinkholes, up to hundreds of feet deep  have formed and consumed parts of city blocks, sidewalks and even entire buildings. Penitentes Named after peak-hooded New Mexican monks (lower right above),  penitentes are dazzling naturally-forming ice blades  that stick up at sharp angles toward the sun.  Rarely found except at high altitudes,  they can grow up taller than a human and form in vast fields.  As ice melts in particular patterns,  'valleys' formed by initial melts leave 'mountains' in their wake.  Strangely, these formations ultimately slow the melting process  as the peaks cast shadows on the deeper surfaces below  and allow for winds to blow over the peaks, cooling them. Lenticular Clouds  Ever wonder the truth about UFOs?  Avoided by traditional pilots but loved by sailplane aviators,  lenticular clouds are masses of cloud  with strong internal uplift that can drive a motorless flyer to high elevations.  Their shape is quite often mistaken  for a mysterious flying object or the artificial cover for one.  Generally, lenticular clouds are formed  as wind speeds up while moving around a large land object such as a mountain. Light Pillars Light pillars appear as eerily upright luminous columns in the sky,  beacons cast into the air above without an apparent source.  These are visible when light reflects just right off of ice crystals  from either the sun (as in the two top images above)  or from artificial ground sources such as street or park lights.  Despite their appearance as near-solid columns of light,  the effect is entirely created by our own relative viewpoint. Sundogs Like light pillars, sundogs are the product of light passing through crystals.  The particular shape and orientation of the crystals  can have a drastic visual impact for the viewer,  producing a longer tail and changing the range of colors one sees.  The relative height of the sun in the sky  shifts the distance the sundogs appear to be on either side of the sun.  Varying climactic conditions on other planets in our solar system  produce halos with up to four sundogs from those planets' perspectives.  Sundogs have been speculated about and discussed since ancient times  and written records describing the various attributes of our sun  date back the Egyptians and Greeks. Fire Whirls Fire whirls (also known as fire devils or tornadoes) appear in or around raging fires  when the right combination of climactic conditions is present.  Fire whirls can be spawned by other natural events  such as earthquakes and thunderstorms,  and can be incredibly dangerous,  in some cases spinning well out of the zone of a fire itself  to cause devastation and death in a radius not even reached by heat or flame.  Fire whirls have been known to be nearly a mile high,  have wind speeds of over 100 miles per hour  and to last for 20 or more minutes. Orange Moons This last phenomena is something most people have seen before - beautiful orange moon hanging low in the sky.  But what causes this phenomena - and, for that matter, does the moon have a color at all?  When the moon appears lower on the horizon, rays of light bouncing off it  have to pass through a great deal more of our atmosphere  which slowly strips away everything but yellows, oranges and reds.  The bottommost image above is true to the hues of the moon  but has enhanced colors to more clearly show the differences in shade  that illustrate the mixed topography and minerology  that tell the story of the moon's surface.  Looking at the colors in combination with the craters  one can start to trace the history of impacts  and consequent material movements across the face of our mysterious moon.

Posted via email from Tom Curley

Just Another Day

Enjoying a wonderful Saturday morning at home, reading the paper, editing photos and straightening up around the house.  Quite enjoyable with Brian Eno's brilliant 2005 album, Another Day On Earth cranked on all the speakers throughout the house.

Posted via email from Tom Curley

Turkey Time

Dad cutting a turkey at 89 West Street. George and Jenny Cote, Nana and Mom look on. No idea who too this picture. Early 1960's.

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New Milford High School concert - May 20, 2010

 

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Posted via email from Tom Curley

I love reminiscing about concerts that I have been to over the years. Here are some stubs that I found in a box recently. They were all good shows. I suppose that I wouldn't have kept the stub if the concert wasn't a great show.

Yup, I did see Supertramp twice. Great 70's band. Notice the ticket price went from $7.50 in '77 to $8.50 in '79. Saw Yes twice also (actually have seen them three times).

These particular stubs should all appear on the list that I created a while back. I'll have to cross reference it carefully to be sure.

Nicole: At Laurie Klein workshop

I attended Laurie Klein's 'play date' workshop at her outdoor studio on Lake Candlewood in Connecticut. What a great time! Nicole Cudzilo (pictured here) is an excellent model to work with. We really got to expand our creativity with the camera, and I enjoyed meeting the other workshop participants. Thank Laurie!

A Simple Plan for Successful Web Marketing Strategy

You can find an unlimited amount of information online to help with web-based marketing. There are lot's of very talented people who create websites -- design, content, search engine optimization. I've dabbled with websites for a long while, and I know one thing for sure --I am NOT a professional website creator. But I have come the realization that there is a basic structure to creating a successful web marketing strategy for small businesses. Sure, many people already know how this works and have already deployed, but I created a chart to show just how simple it is.

Let's assume that you have a small business and want to implement a web marketing strategy. Just about any type of business can benefit from this, but let's assume that the business sells products or services to consumers in a local market area. I know a lot of photographers who have businesses that fit this model. Here is the basic deal. You need four things: a website, a Facebook page, a Twitter account and a blog. The website is the foundation. It is ultimately the destination that you want your customers to enter - the virtual store. Not that you necessarily have to have a shopping cart and e-commerce solution, but you should find an appropriate web content creator depending on the level of sophistication of the site.

The Facebook page and Twitter accounts are the easy part. You can do this on your own. After checking out how others have done it, just roll up your sleeves and get started. Upload a logo, some photos, fill out the profiles and your up and running.

The blog is pretty easy to set up also, and my be tightly integrated with the website -- discuss with your website creator if you have questions. The important part of a blog is that you regularly post content to it... like, weekly. Of course you must regularly and actively provide content and updates to the FB and Twitter accounts also.

But here is an important part of all of this... and the point of the chart. As the arrows indicate, you need to have bidirectional linkage between these four components. I have seen instances where one of these links in nonexistent. For example, a website doesn't reference the blog. Or the website doesn't include a 'follow me' link to the Twitter account. Use the chart to map out your various components and make sure that they are referencing each other. Optionally, you may want to set up a YouTube channel (like Facebook and Twitter, there is typically no cost involved). Finally, you may want to set up a company profile on LinkedIn.

Italy Panoramas by Photographs by Tom Curley

I took this picture of my son, James, at the Royal Crescent in Bath England in 2000. It always reminded me of Andrew Wyeth's Christina's World, which I got to see at MOMA in NY last month.

Need Help with Caption

Help me find a caption to this photo. I took this picture in Siena, Italy in 2006.

How to preserve and share your home movies

Re: David Pogue's blog posting on NY Times.com http://bit.ly/c5S7n2 ....

I'm all for capturing, preserving and SHARING family/home movies. But storing old movies on local discs is not the ultimate solution. Hard drives will fail over time (MTBF), and DVD as well (environmental degradation, etc.). For me, the solution is to put them online. YouTube allows personal page to be set up. This enables easy sharing, remotely, with other family members. I've already done this with home movies going back to the 1950's, originally captured on 16mm film (which were transferred to VHS, then DVD). Does anyone think that Google will not be around in 10 years or more, and that these YouTube videos will be available for continued sharing? Compared to hard drives, which will ultimatley fail after, say, 5 years of use?

See the Playlist of my grandfather John's movies here:
http://www.youtube.com/tcurley#g/p

Yellow Pants: San Gimignano, Italy 2006

Yellow Pants: San Gimignano, Italy 2006

Night time image of building under construction

Salem, MA 11/14/09
Image made with 10.5mm Nikon fisheye lens.

Image of Bridgewater, CT autumn scene captured with Finepix S5 Pro using my new 28-300 Tamron lens with VC (Vibration Compensation) technology. No tripod! Awesome.

At the Met - New York City

I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC with my friend, Carol Fondé (www.carolfondephotography.com) last week. It was a great afternoon of exploring the galleries. We visited the Temple of Dendur and I grabbed this image. My friend Julio Sosa did a bit of work on the file in Photoshop... I think he did a great job to bring out the real feeling of this photo. Thanks, Julio! Carol and I spend the rest of the visit tracking down John Singer Sargent paintings and ended up seeing some fantastic stuff. More images in my Facebook Photos album.

Phlox in June

 A sure sign that June has arrived is the sighting of Phlox all over western Connecticut.  These tiny white and purple flowers grow wild along the roadsides everywhere.  The blooms last only about two weeks. 

Summer 2009 Update

OK, here goes. I am planning to become more active with the blog. Focus on photography, my personal work that is. I am now editing images that I made on recent trip to Alaska. I've got data all over the place and trying to get organized. New Macbook is sweet, but I dont have Photoshop loaded yet. I'm going to load the new Picasa3 for Mac. The ol' Dell is still going strong, but I am backing up everything, and moving a whole lot of files off of the relatively small C:/ drive to several of the larger USB drives. Backing up everything in multiple places.

• Another big goal for the near term is the update my website. Again, focus on photography, my stock images in particular.
  
• I've been accepted as a provider to iStockPhoto.com and will be uploading hi res images there.
  
• Panorama images are exclusive to DanitaDelimont.com, though.
  

Thanks for stopping by!

Cheers!

Tom